Denise Reid, Sunday Gleaner Writer

THE PARENT-Teacher Association (PTA) of Cornwall College has dismissed a claim by Prime Minister Bruce Golding, who intimated that the St James-based high school is among the schools extorting auxiliary fees from students.

A release from the Mark Duhaney-led PTA on Friday explained that at its meeting on July 1, the school's management decided, at the risk of compromising its operations, to trim some expense items from the budget which it had earlier presented.

"The meeting then voted to accept $12,600 per child in auxiliary fees for the lower school and $30,000 for sixth form. Consequently, the final figure voted for was $13,600 for the lower school and $30,000 for sixth form."

ideal budget

Explaining the budgetary needs of the school, the PTA noted that the ideal budget to run the school was $55 million; however, after much cutting and carving by the finance committee last year, they arrived at a final figure of $36 million, of which $5.7 million was brought forward from the previous year.

Speaking in Parliament last Tuesday, Prime Minister Golding chided school administrators for charging exorbitant fees, and in some instances, turning away students who did not pay these non-obligatory auxiliary fees. He named Cornwall College as one such institution.

However, the Cornwall College PTA said because of inadequate funding from Government, groups such as the school's old boys' association have had to be doing fund-raising to meet some of its expenses. The document outlined a monthly electricity bill of $347,616, water bill of $111,509, and telephone bill of $34,912.

Like Cornwall College, Montego Bay High School is facing the pinch from inadequate government funding, and according to Carol Ellis, the school's bursar, the school had to be engaging in creative financing to meet its obligations.

"When the money we get is finished, we have to be depleting other accounts, so to me, it is not sufficient," said Ellis, stating that they had not hiked their fees. "I don't know what is going to happen. I have to borrow from other accounts to offset additional expense.

"Right now, we need about $10-$12 million to run the school," continued Ellis. "We have to be using fund-raising to offset some of our expenses."

Ellis explained that funds generated from fund-raising are generally not meant for the purpose of daily school operations, but for special projects.